The Paradox
by monstahmikelson16
Summary: While escorting a scientific expedition to a Forerunner shipyard Blue team is overwhelmed and forced into faulty slip space suspension pods by a rampant Forerunner Monitor. When John reawakens he finds himself in a perilous universe alone. Chief must regroup with his team and return to their own reality, but the Reaper invasion may just complicate things. The war is far from over..
1. Chapter 1

**AN: Rewrite is here and I hope you enjoy I would like some input on the changes made mostly corrections and more description. I don't own anything besides the plot. **

**Enjoy...**

The Master Chief, the legendary Spartan II, and the hero of all humanity, hadn't moved from his position in four hours. The observation deck was deserted leaving John alone with his loss for company. He was in his repaired MJOLRNIR armor staring into the debris field of the Didact's ship and the composer. The Spartan heard the airlock doors open and John saw three tall, familiar people: His Spartan team the legendary and feared Blue team.

John saw Kelly-087 flash Chief a rare genuine bare smile. He returned it with two fingers over where his lips would be in the Spartan's symbol for smile. Fred-104 gave the Chief a salute. Linda-058 gave a grin which John also returned. After greeting each other the Spartans caught up with their squad leader recounting their mission on the forerunner shield world Onyx. Blue ended with their explanation of Halsey's arrest for kidnapping a Spartan with the intentions of giving them a chance of survival. After being arrested her Spartan II military project that gave Earth and her colonies the ultimate counter insurgency team and eventually guardians against the Covenant onslaught came to light. Her gift to humanity came at the price of seventy five children's childhoods, safety, and rights which lost in their training from six to their eventual augmentations that left thirty of the candidates dead, another twelve horribly crippled, with thirty three successful super soldiers.

"So Halsey wasn't even on Earth. I thought that if I got Cortana to Earth then she would be alright. I tried to get her to Earth." John whispered and turned back to the window and resumed staring off into space.

Kelly led the Spartans out and once they were out of earshot said,"Johns taking her death hard. He's withdrawn. I've never seen him this way, even when Sam died he never lost himself like this. Something's wrong."

"He needs a distraction," Fred offered as they stepped into a grav lift ," if he doesn't have any time to think about her then he'll be alright buying us time to get him back on track."

"Maybe it's best to let him mourn and grieve for her.I mean, when has any Spartan ever had time to lick their wounds and mourn? He deserves it after all he's been through." Linda disagreed as they landed at the top of the lift and continued onto the Officers club to meet with the newly promoted Captain Thomas Lasky and Spartan IV Commander Sarah Palmer.

The room was sparsely decorated with campaign trophies and souvenirs from Sanghellios and Requiem, the only operations the ship had participated had taken place on those planets, and a vigil for the casualties of New Phoenix by the fully stocked bar. Sarah nodded to Blue team as they entered making Lasky aware of their presence. They were alone in the hall.

"Officer on deck!" Fred as the highest ranking of entering party barked as he and Blue saluted in unison.

" At ease. How was he?" Lasky asked in a worried tone after releasing the Spartans from attention.

"Withdrawn. He isn't doing good, Captain" Kelly reported and shook her head sadly.

"Sir,I believe if we distract him and keep his mind off Cortana then he'll get better." Fred said calmly even though he was worried sick for John.

"I disagree Sir. He should be allowed to grieve and move at his own pace, Sir" Linda remarked with scowl towards Fred.

"What about both? If I may he needs to be productive or UNSC personnel are bound to lose morale seeing him mourning and eventually civilians will too. If we allow him to come to terms with his loss in between missions, which would be practically milk runs, people would still see him as strong preserving morale. The Admiralty board would also get off our backs if he does something that looks busy." Lasky compromised and reached a reasonable middle ground between the two plans.

"I actually have a mission in mind, Sir. I need a team to escort some eggheads through some Forerunner ruins; its basically babysitting. Only with guns and Super Soldiers and no babies." Palmer suggested.

"He has an award ceremony tomorrow and then we're due at Trevelyan after that to pick up more MJOLRNIR armor and new weapons. Later we'll RV with the _Messiah_ to pick up the group of scientists you'll be babysitting along with the Chief. Then to the ruins. After that I'm drawing a blank so maybe War games with the IVs?" Lasky said after pulling out his data pad to read his orders.

"Sounds about right," Sarah said," I can't wait to try out those new hard light weapons ONI just finished making exclusively for Spartans."

"That sounds awesome!" Fred said with a twisted grin on his face. He couldn't wait to use the weapons. Rumor had it the weapons have virtually unlimited ammo, the batteries were made to recharge when empty drawing on the MJOLRNIR's miniature fusion reactor power plant.

"Spartans you're dismissed, get some shut eye and be ready for the awards ceremony by 0700 hours." Lasky ordered the Spartans of Blue and the Spartan IV Commander. The warriors saluted, and left to their quarters.


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: Rewrite is here and I hope you enjoy I would like some input on the changes made mostly corrections and more description. I don't own anything besides the plot. **

**Enjoy...**

John was dressed in his black Spartan dress outfit, his chest was a mass of medals and ribbons, and at attention. Lord Hood the highest ranking officer in the UNSC navy was presenting John with another award, one commissioned specifically for John, the Medal of Gratitude, it was a light blue heart with a starburst of gold and platinum behind with a blue diamond set in the center of the heart.

"Welcome back from the dead Master Chief." Lord Hood said with a smile and a handshake as his eyes began to tear up. Humanity could never do enough for this one man, this one man who had faced the impossible and expected nothing for it.

"John, you once said that a hero needn't speak as his actions would speak for him. Master Chief your actions are the reason why we have a future and our children will have one. The entire galaxy, known or unknown, is in your debt and we can never repay you or thank you enough. I hope that saying thank you can express what our tears of joy and gratitude cannot. Thank you." Lord Terrence Hood with a single tear of joy running out of his eyes and into his wrinkled skin saluted the Master Chief after placing the silver box with a white velvet inside cradling the Medal of Gratitude in John's hand.

"Thank you, Sir." Master Chief said in a calm stoic voice accepting the Medal of Gratitude and shaking Hood's hand.

With a perfect flare for drama the UNSC marine band began to play "Taps" until John walked off stage after being dismissed.

On board the UNSC _Infinity_ the Master chief stared off into the nothingness of slip space as the ship traveled to the new ONI research base named after Kurt Trevelyan 051 for activating Fenris nuclear warheads killing himself in the process to keep the covenant away from the Forerunner technology inside the Dyson sphere. After the awards ceremony had ended John had slipped away to a pelican and flown it to the hangar bay leaving behind the party goers and socialites. He had never preferred ceremonies and press conference before and never would. The time it took to shake a beauracrat's hand was better spent on the battle field or training. As he watched the ship exited slip space and entered reality again in orbit of the Forerunner planet.

A Orbital Defense Platform guarded the planet as Prowlers appeared and disappeared from detection as they arrive or left. The Albatross hauling the new hard light weaponry was awaiting the _Infinity _and without delay flew into the hangar and began to unload the MJOLRNIR and Spartan weaponry. A spook walked off to meet with Lasky and another one boarded the Albatross. After the spook returned from delivering the coordinates of the rendezvous with the scientist the heavy drop ship lifted off and returned to Trevelyan.

"Chief I would like you to reporting to the S deck for an armor refitting then come down to the firing range and get familiar with the Hard lights." Sarah Palmer commed the Master Chief, he blinked his acknowledgment light twice and left to the S deck for his new armor.

The airlock doors opened up to reveal a massive room with multiple levels of MJOLRNIR mounting lifts and a fully equipped gym on the bottom level with rows of treadmills and weight racks. The Spartan IVs on deck made a crowd around the Master Chief as he stalked over to the assigned armor lift to shed his armor and don his upgrade.

Sarah Palmer walked over to him and briefed him on the Mark VIII gen 2 specifications: it had a secondary shield layer that could emit any a wave length from microwaves to EMPs both shields hugged the surface of the armor and were no longer frictionless, the armor had a enhanced neural implant computer allowing for faster reaction times and more accurate actions giving Spartans improved dexterity enhancing the effectiveness of emergency field surgery, the new refractive coating that protects the user from plasma and hard light rounds longer and thanks to the nanites in the armor systems would repair itself and other components when not improving their function by tuning the armor for the situation at hand. The armor seemed to resemble John's old armor with olive green armor plating and the now legendary helmet being identical in appearance, but the black under armor layer was comprised of rigid carbon muscles hugging the form of the wearer.

John was given privacy, a curtain was drawn so he could put on a set of nanofiber BDUs that worked in sync with the hydrostatic gel layer allowing the BDUs to send biometric data to the suit. After clothing the Chief raised his arms allowing the robotic assistant to begin to encase him in the armor. As he was entombed the Spartan marveled at how light the armor was; upon the completion of armoring up John felt _strong_ there was no other way to describe how his power armor came online and acted upon his thoughts with grace and precision practically allowing him to glide without the normal sliding on oiled ice sensation of the older models as he stepped off the stand. The HUD came online and displayed the FOF tags of the crowd their biometrics and their personal files in an overwhelming wave of information. As he judged the display too busy the HUD cleared up and became more streamlined with shortened names, ranks, and status indicators taking the place of the files.

"God, Chief you look badass!" Palmer said looking up to him.

Kelly asked the Chief "How does it feel?"

"Powerful, it the only way I can describe it." John raised his arms and flexed his arms and rolled his shoulders.

"Now that your acquainted with your armor then let's go check out the hard lights." Captain Lasky said as he came to the front of the crowd.

"Yes Sir."

The Spartans of Blue team in their new Mark VIII gen 2 MJOLRNIR armor reported to the firing range in a collected calm outward appearance. On the inside they were itching to try out the new hardware.


	3. Chapter 3

**AN: Rewrite is here and I hope you enjoy I would like some input on the changes made mostly corrections and more description. I don't own anything besides the plot. **

**Enjoy...**

The air lock doors to the armory opened to reveal a bright room with rows of weapons secured into lockers and racks, massive dispensers for ammo were secured at the rend of each row of lockers with the ammo for the weapons in said row. The firing range was off to the left through a small air lock door that sealed in the sounds of discharging weapons.

Blue walked through the doors to see a metal work bench holding weapons of familiar design yet strange function. The new hard light line of UNSC weaponry the Spartans of Blue team reacted differently.

Fred whistled as he picked up a new shotgun that was similar to the 21st century AA-12 Striker an automatic shotgun. The UNSC had developed a new weapon that built on the psychological effect of the Striker's roar of deadly buckshot producing the M-70 Ares automatic shotgun. The Ares was the ultimate in antipersonnel weaponry capable of launching 400 hard light shattering shells a minute until depletion of the battery that recharged in sixty seconds.

The weapon that caught John's eye was the MA5E Hard light; the Assault Rifle was now the pinnacle of adaptability, capable of selective fire the new rifle better accuracy, lower recoil, and a heavier punch. The battery was able to charge in thirty seconds as the ammo needed less energy to form allowing it to charge faster and fire up to 500 rounds before needing a recharge.

Kelly weighed a pair of SMGs in her hands unable to believe how light the killing machines were. Their light weight would allow her to maintain her manueverbilty and her lethality without compromise. The SMGs were accurate in bursts, but when firing upwards of 1000 rounds a minute the for a few minutes inaccuracy wasn't a problem.

Linda immediately upon reaching the Basilisk Sniper Rifle began to look over her new weapon with the care of a loving mother handling her newborn. The Basilisk easily outgunned anything on the table with it's capability to pierce through any known material to man with it's superheated anti-material hard light rounds. Upon piercing any armor the round would release a contained micro slip space portal inside of the target. The round was a guaranteed one hit kill against any organic target and a serious anti vehicle, ship and air craft threat.

The M6E was relatively unchanged. The pistol packed a surprising punch before, but now it was a knock out capable of automatic bursts that exploded after sticking to the surface or interior of the target. The battery lasted virtually forever and recharged in a few seconds flat. The beauty of this weapon was realized by everyone in the room and they holstered their own after customizing the sight package.

The heavy weapons received an overhaul on their function the SPNKR replacement combined the Grendel/Gaillene Spartan laser with the rocket launcher into a weapon that was charged before firing a tracking hard light round that could hit a target through cover and convert it into a superheated mess of organic matter and glassed terrain where the target once existed.

The heavier cousin of the SAW was similar to the turrets the UNSC used, but it was lighter more accurate and now hard light based. The turret had a specialized battery that charged while firing via power channeled through the shields of the armor. So the heavy Hammer was aptly named for its ability to crush any opposition to the wielder's objective, whatever the objective was, at a thousand heavy hard light rounds a minute until it had to cool down.

In the end John decided he would take a hard light BR, AR, and Magnum. Linda took along the standard DMR, her customized Basilisk. Fred opted for an Ares and a Hard Light launcher as a secondary for the Hammer; someone had to lug around the big guns after all. Kelly kept her load light with a pair of SMGs and two Magnums. The Spartans zeroed in their sights and tuned their weapons to their liking and combat role. The Spartans were so absorbed in their weapons the didn't notice Lasky opening the door flanked by a Spartan IV and a technician who had a small armored box.

John shouldered his rifle to see it the sights were zeroed in as accurately as possible. As he looked down the sights he noticed Lasky and the two unknowns."Admiral on deck!" he barked catching all of Blue off guard, it wasn't perceptible to a normal human, but to John the difference was obvious.

"At ease Spartans. I'm here to introduce you to the Spartan Fire-team leader you'll be with going down and then I have a pleasant surprise for you." Admiral Lasky said indicating the Spartan IV who stepped forward.

"Before I introduce myself I would like to say it's a honor to meet you guys. My name is Lieutenant James White 412, Squad leader of Fire team Royal. Royal is a cross trained Sapper explosives group with a little bit of badass in the party mix."

John was immediately turned off by the Spartan's vulgar language and lack of professionalism. His squad sounded like it was a force to be reckoned with, Sappers were known to have a knack for explosives and a Spartan was trained to be the best in long range deployment in high risk areas so it was a potent mixture that made Royal a deep striking sabotage explosive expert team. "Does your team have any experience in combat Lieutenant?"

"Yes sir we were deployed to a Loyalist planet and ordered to destroy a shipyard and gather intelligence about future deployment. On the surface we discovered a Forerunner installation that was supplying the Loyalist with advanced firearms and armor. We infiltrated the facility and set up charges around it's reactor and made a smash and grab on enemy HQ and bugged out, as soo hit safe distance we set off the charges and watched the fireworks. Sir!"

"Safe distance?" Chief asked the Sapper Spartan.

"We did some calculations before hand and realized the reactor would go off in a bang that would effectively melt the surface of the planet setting it back two billion years in terms of geography. Needless to say we didn't want to find out first hand what that would feel like, Sir."

"Understood, Lieutenant" John said, all negative opinions aside John and the rest of Blue had reached a decision. As a team they reached a conclusion through subtle hand signals and a trio of acknowledgment lights approving the Spartans of Royal, Royal was now in the big leagues. "Captain, you mentioned a surprise?" Lasky nodded to the technician who stepped forward opening the case to reveal four AI active chips.

The technician began to explain,"The Brass wants to maximize the Spartan's potential and decided to have AIs created to go into combat with you; The Master Chief and Cortana's effectiveness operating together was the benchmark of how successful the concept could be. Blue and Royal will be paired with fourth generation AIs that will use their abilities for on the fly intelligence and coordination between other UNSC units. Everyone on Blue team will have one and Royal will have to share. Petty Officer 087 please step forward"

Kelly walked over and opened her hand for the technician to give her the assigned AI. The man went to pick one up then hesitated and then went to hand her over another only to second guess himself again

"Sorry, Ma'am the AIs look the same. I had the order somewhere..." his voice trailed off when his confidence disappeared as Kelly swiped the box from his hand and put an AI into her neural input.

Kelly shivered as an icy cold presence filled her head like someone had poured ice water into her head. "Hello? Anyone here?"

A male voice answered in an Australian accent simultaneously in her head and her helmets internal speakers as a tall tanned khaki safari gear clad Australian man with a Bowie knife shimmering in lines of data on his belt,"Crickey! there's so much room in here, I'll have to start moving my porn in here immediately."

"Are you serious we have a perverted Aussie AI on the team? You put your porn in my head I'll make you..." Kelly said allowing everyone to hear much to the chagrin of the techie.

"I'm just joking I don't really have name is Donny. Hold on there sheila you're not Fred. You ruined my joke..." Donny said in a mock angry tone before Kelly pulled his chip out and handed it to Fred who handed her one in return.

"Oh thank God, someone I can talk to. My name is Summer, it's a pleasure to meet you Kelly." An upbeat female tone sang out with a fitting avatar that followed the fashion of a Texan Cowgirl in a bright flowery blouse and faded Levi denim short-shorts

"Umm, hi." Kelly said unsure of how to respond. She had worked with Smart AIs before, but this was a different experience for her as she was unsure of how the AI would react to her.

"Is that all you have to say now darling?"Summer said in a gleeful voice

"Ya." Kelly said irked at the AI calling her darling.

"I thought you would be funner to talk to in person" Summer sighed.

"Sorry to disappoint" Kelly replied

"It's OK, I'll get you talking like a woman in no time..." Summer laughed.

The Chief looked at his squad exchanging the AIs around as thy sorted out who had been paired up with who. Lasky took an AI chip out of his pocket and handed the chip to Chief.

"Master Chief the AI I'm holding is not Cortana; it's her sister AI. Her name is Melody. She was created from living tissue just like Cortana. She was chosen to be your AI at her request."

"Sir, why? Why am I getting another AI. I don't want to be paired up again."

"Chief, the fact is you perform more effectively with an AI partner and we didn't think you would appreciate a Cortana copy cat. So we gave you her sister because she is just as skilled at hacking and more synchronized to your neural net than any other AI in existence." With that said Lasky handed Chief the AI chip who slotted the chip into his head.

"Hello John." A calm female voice said in greeting to the legendary Spartan. John stiffened at her voice that was so similar to Cortana's, everything abut her was close to Cortana, yet not exactly the same the largest differences would be the red and orange theme Melody seemed to favor and her long flowing hair.

"Hello." He said gruffly to Melody. She took his hint and didn't force a conversation that was already over.

"Lets get this out of the way Chief I'm not Cortana, no one can ever replace her; She was unique. And you're acting like you have nothing to live for. You're not the only soldier who's lost a friend. That just makes you more human and wasting time grieving for her would just disappoint her were she still alive. You have a job to do and no one but you can do it. So dry your tears and make her proud" Melody said after a minute of silence passed between them.

"She said something like that once, about being a machine." John said to Melody.

"Your the champion of humanity, but you've never truly been human. Never really had a reason to fight beyond your orders or for her. Now you can fight for yourself John." Melody whispered to John.

"Alright." He said in agreement.

"Captain, I'm ready to go." John said looking at Lasky.


	4. Chapter 4

**AN: Rewrite is here and I hope you enjoy I would like some input on the changes made mostly corrections and more description. I don't own anything besides the plot. **

**Enjoy...**

John stood near the ramp of the Pelican as it descended from the sky until it landed on a protruding landing pad on the face of a Forerunner tower. The seven Spartans emerged from the drop ship with the scientists in tow as they landed on the Forerunner Shield world.

"Linda get into to position to monitor and provide sniper support for us. Fred, Royal set up a perimeter make sure there are no flood here. Kelly you're with me guarding the scientist." Seven acknowledgment lights blinked on John's HUD." Melody get me a map of the installation, and find out if anything here can threaten us."

"On it Chief." Melody responded before diving into the Forerunner's computer systems.

The scientist were holding data pads and had began their meticulous cataloging of the Facility. As the Spartans of Royal set up a perimeter with Fred, Donny and Kelsey sent in reports on what was going on.

"Nothing in sight chief except some repair sentinels." Kelsey Linda's AI partner briefed John.

Donny sent in his report confirming Linda's. The Royal AI, Patriot, sent in a report on where the perimeter was established, possible routes and interesting technology seen so far.

"Chief, a whole Forerunner shipyard is here with several Fortress class forerunner dreadnought." The whole team was silent, this shipyard alone could advance humanity by hundreds of years, the dreadnought could catapult human weaponry another millennium forward.

"Doctors, if you would please come with us to the shipyard. I'm sure your expertise would be better spent there rather than a landing pad." John said over the comm channels. He didn't have to speak twice as the scientist scrambled to unpack portable scanners and computers. When they finished preparing the Spartans fanned out and cleared the way to the nearest teleporter that Melody had located.

One Spartan went through escorting a group of scientists until the Master Chief stepped through on alert and joined the awestruck group collecting just outside of the portal. The Chief blinked and reset his HUD unable to believe his eyes as he craned his neck to look up to see floating Forerunner dreadnought and skeletal superstructures for abandoned ship builds held upright by energy tethers and floating towers. John couldn't see the top of the shipyard's spires nor could he see any end to the rows of towers and incomplete ships. The UNSC would be unchallengeable with this facility under their control as they pumped out thousands of ships at a time. John could see one of the scientist recording the yard with an expression of awe on his face. The Spartans of Royal were expressing their awe with several explicit phrase each, until Lt. White summed up everyone's thoughts, "Holy Crap this place is huge!"

The expedition team was so absorbed by the Forerunner marvel that they were startled when a artifical male voice said," Oh, hello my name is 909 Obedient Bias monitor of Shipyard installion 11123342322"


	5. Chapter 5

**AN: This chapter got deleted somehow and I had to restart it, so in essence this is a rewrite of this chapter. Enjoy! First part is a nightmare for john similar to the one found in the opening parts of ****Halo:The Flood**** the Halo:CE novelization by William C. Dietz mixed with my own artistic attempt to show the common person's experience during the Covenant war, mainly the horror and tragedy involved with losing loved ones. The rest will mark the entrance to the Mass Effect universe. The dream sequence memory will be explained further on by Melody. And yes I know he never knew his family or he doesn't have a sister, it is taken into account in the explanation. To the reviewers who helped to catch the errors, well done thank you for using your time to help improve the piece. I still need a Beta though who can catch these problems before hand. If interested PM and we'll swap contact info. The dream/memory sequence is actually a security measure taken by Melody to protect classified secrets. I can only get better if you review, at this point even flames are welcome, but not as much as constructive comments that can help me make the story better.**

**Enjoy...**

John was cautiously walking forward, he didn't know why, on a vibrant blue light bridge with his assault rifle ready to fire. He took another step and a female voice sadly said, "We were supposed to take care of each other. And we did." Only after she had spoken did he realized that the woman was Cortana and this was the final duel between himself and the composer. He took another step forward, and aimed at where the He had last seen the Didact. He know that he was above him and aimed his rifle up only to be seized by a crushing force field that picked him up and held him over the swirling maw of the orange slip space rupture underneath him. The didact said something, but John was yelling in his rage in his helplessness. He had failed Earth and Cortana, he was forced to watch Earth be attacked and saw as the Didact was attacked by Cortana and her rampant personalities. Her forms dived at him, but Didact outsmarted her and teleported away from her. John watched as she finally faded into nothing while he fell into the rupture and everything dissolved into static until an eerie white space remained devoid of all reality, but slowly a new landscape appeared and

He woke up startled and shouted in a primeval cry of anguish, He had no idea what had happened. He climbed out of his bed and ran into his parents room t his mom, his mother had ben awakened by his cries and had already gotten out of bed to check on him. He ran to her and grabbed her in a fierce hug. He sobbingly told her what had happened in his nightmare; his father had been woken up too and grasped his son's shoulder to comfort him. John reached the part where he fell into the swirling orange whirlpool watching the blue woman die. When John had finished his tale he started to fall asleep again. His father scooped him up in gentle arms. John fell asleep again as he was tucked into his sheets.

Thirteen years later...

John turned over in his bed, sleeping in his boxers. He was going to score the winning point in the Grav ball finals for his team in his dream, almost there he though to himself as he reached an unguarded end zone. His father shook him awake and thrust John's running shoes into his hands along with one of the pistols they had bought when the Covenant had attacked Epsilon Indi Seven right next door.

"Quickly son, put those on. They found us son, we need to leave now!"

"Dad what the fuck? I was having a good dream" John asked still half asleep.

His father said in a scared sob,"The Covenant are here," John felt his stomach churn in a wave of nausea that bite into his stomach and constricted around his heart, "The UNSC fleet's getting fucked up. They'll start glassing shortly. Our only hope is to leave before they blockade the planet completely."

With out another word John put his shoes on checked the pistol and went to the front room. John's mother was hugging John's crying little baby sister Amy and trying to get a coat on. John helped her by taking Amy and bounced her up and down and cooed softly in her ear," Don't worry, I've got you. Nothing will happen." eventually she stopped crying and he dried her tears. His mom appeared now in a windbreaker and with a civilian hunting rifle. He passed Amy to her when her tears were dried.

The Masons walked out the door after peeking through the spyhole. The family rushed to their sedan and peeled out of the drive way. John checked his pistol while keeping an eye out for traffic and purple drop ships and vehicles belonging to the covenant. They merged onto the bridge and slammed on their breaks, the bridge was full of cars more akin to a parking lot than a freeway. John, as rehearsed got out of the car, unbuckled Amy and waited for his parents to get out off the car. John began to jog to the space port three and a half miles away, just beyond the end of the bridge. John avoided the crowds of people by sprinting onto a car and began to gracefully. Sprinting on the car top John made half of the bridge. John turned around to confirm the next par of the plan with his parents and was stunned; they weren't there. He hopped onto the roof of a tall truck and spotted them struggling to get to a car to run on like he had, but the surging crowd of panicking people kept them from the cars and the made no forward momentum at all as John watched helplessly. The refugees began to surge forward in terror as a group of banshees made a pass over the bridge strafing the crowds. Hundreds fell victim to the plasma rounds and chunks of the bridge were destroyed with the blazing fuel rod cannon rounds. As the banshees turned about in a horrifyingly agile turn they unleashed more green shots and destroyed the part of the bridge most densely packed section of the bridge, where John had last seen his parents. Hot tears ran down his face as he saw the bridge suspension lines snap cutting people to shrieking halfs in swaths of . The bridge began to crumble at the destroyed sections and sway from side to side. John blinked the tears from his eyes as he sprinted around the carnage and death on the tops of cars.

John ran faster than he ever before and leaped over the swaying gaps in the bridges structure running on the tops of cars as the bridge began to deteriorate and lose structural integrity. John reached the end of the bridge which was pulling away from the land on the other side. Screaming John hugged Amy and sprinted beyond what he had ever dreamed himself capable of up the inclining bridge dodging between the rolling charred remains of the unfortunate and the avalanche of debris. He leaped and made it on to the other side just as the bridge plummeted. John kissed Amy on the forehead thanked God and took off again to finish the race for survival. He heard a low roaring electrical sound and saw a drop ship unleashing feral packs of dog like aliens that screamed in evil barks and growls as they tore into people who cried and threw their hands up in helplessness as the wave of rabid grunts ripped into their families and friends. John juked his way through the bursts of sporadic plasma and the bloodied talons of the horrible aliens. John made it through relatively untouched except for a slash down his back. He had thrown himself in between the slash and Amy. He out ran the pursuing monsters and their demonic handlers with those blades of unrelenting plasma. He weaved through the invaders and escaped their slashes until he ran through the barricaded spaceport doors, over the corpses of smoking marines and militia men who had died to protect heir families. John evaded the patrols of preying shield bearing vultures. He finally made it to the tarmac his shirt covering the blisters of passing plasma rounds. The ship he was heading for was shelled by a bright blue comet that boiled through its cockpit and lit the over loaded ship ablaze trapping the hundreds of souls in the hellish flames until it exploded into multiple chunks. One last ship was taking off from the tarmac, but a grunt heaving a yellow weapon that glowed gree was aiming at it. John saw his opportunity to get Amy and himself if he could manage it off world. He ran and fired his pistol, the last thing his father had given him ,repeatedly squeezing the trigger until he was empty and blew the bastard nearly in half. The marines aboard blessedly saw his actions and opened the doors assault rifles spraying left and right covering him as they pulled him aboard and closed the door as the shuttle took to space. The ship rolled left and right banked up and dove down avoiding the hundred of white hot plasma rounds fired at it. A scream was let loose and people were crying out in fear, the shuttle was now in the inky black of space being pursued by a sleek covenant corvette. The screams intensified as the corvette launched a torpedo that homed in on them despite the pilot's best attempts to shake it. The plasma torpedo miraculously impacted upon a broken UNSC ship and was lost in the impact. The pilot put in the randomized vector for escape through slip space and jumped. Relieved John let his tears of relief and elation, then loss and sadness stream from his eyes and kissed Amy on her head tryig to quiet her shrieks of fears cooing to her telling her everything was OK.

Three weeks later...

John strode past the long line of volunteers outside of the recruitment building, John stepped into the building ignoring the protests and curses of those still in line. He looked around locating the nearest recruitment officer at a desk and pushed the man that he was seeing out of the way.

"I'm volunteering for the UNSC Marines, I'm going to be an ODST and you're going to make it happen." John's order to the enlistment officer had hushed everyone.

"Listen kid, you don't give me orders. Now get out of here and go home. You're not an adult anyway, I'll need your parents signature anyway."

"My parents signature? Fuck you, my parents died on Epsilon Eridanus Two, I watched the die. I ran through three miles of hell and demons carrying my little sister to a spaceport watching thousands of people get torn apart by Covenant. I've seen more and done more than most Marines have ever done. Now make me an ODST."

There was a palpable silence in the air as the recruiter whispered " Oh, God."

When he didn't move John simply pushed him out of his desk and enlisted himself before being carried away by two MPs. John tore away from them and tried to leave on his own will, but one of the MPs took his telescopic baton and used the hilt to knock John out.

The recruiter tried to undo what the young man had done in a panicked scramble. When he found the option to erase that entry an ODST captain in his BDUs stopped him, "Don't he'll just reenlist again and again. I recognized that look in his eyes: murder. He wants revenge. I've never seen a regular soldier fight harder than a man with revenge in his heart. We need that kind of fight." The recruitment office faded from reality as John escaped from the razor thin edge between life and death by reanimating and leaving the induced coma's abyss. The dream flickered and dissipated like a Hologram feed that was experiencing interference.

John stirred and took hs first full breath in hours. The air carried with it the absence of the scent of his atmosphere scrubbers and something pleasant, someone was touching his face and he felt someone's warm breathe on his face. The Spartan opened his eyes and saw a woman intimately close to him, practically kissing him. The next thing John noticed was this woman was blue and had _gill_s? In place of hair. He felt a unfamiliar warm gentle presence withdraw from his mind To be replaced slowly by an emptiness that he had only felt without Cortana.

She gasped and opened her eyes and mumbled, " Oh, goddess." Just before John used his legs to kick her into the air buying himself time to reach for his assault rifle. His gauntlet patted his empty back instead of his weapon, he had been disarmed. Without a weapon John was limited to using his martial arts and stealth. He raised his hands up in a loose fist and lowered his center of gravity and took a step forward in the direction of the blue alien woman. John was planning to use her as leverage for the return of his weapons, but before he could locate her a blue mist hugged his armor and he flew through the air crashing into crates and a squat white and black ship. The ship slid with a screech upon impacting with the Spartan. John rolled to his side avoiding anther blue mist attack. He mostly got out of the way, but a tendril of the mist made contact with his calf and yanked him towards the woman. John improvised and sprung into a full armed strike propelled by his own push and the pull of the mist his fist connected with the woman's side and she crumpled in a heap three meters away. He jogged over To her and checked her vital and frowned at the erratic pulse, he didn't know if it was normal for her species or not. He patted down her figure, it was almost pointless as her clothing was so tight on her body. Surprisingly he managed to find a wrist watch of unfamiliar make on her right arm. Along with a smoking hunk of technology that was obviously totaled.

John stowed the watch away in his hard carry case built into the side of the MJLORNR armor for safekeeping and later investigation. John stood up and turned around to see an armored figure with N7 inscribed on their chest holding a rifle towards him. John clenched his teeth and ducked and weaved to the side and staggered when a orange orb appeared from thin air and electrocuted him locking his armor mid step.

John was able to turn his head around and stare at the figure, who had kept the rifle trained on him. After a moment The figure lowered the rifle and removed their helmet and revealed the face of a human woman.

"How the hell are you moving around? Just a minute ago you were in an induced coma, now you're kicking people who are trying to help you." The woman spoke in a commanding tone. While she was speaking a crew of four humanoids rushed to the alien woman and carried her off in a field of blue mist similar to what he had been attacked with.

"What are you and where am I?" John intently asked buying time until his armor unlocked in fifteen seconds. He gauged this new woman, she had blue eyes and high check bones with full lips and angled crimson hair that framed her face. She was in short quite beautiful, but John disregarded her appearance, he had killed women before in counter-insurgency operations. One more kill wasn't going to make any difference. Ten seconds left, John counted off.

"Commander Jane Shepard Alliance Navy, you're on my ship the _Normandy. _Now that I've answered your questions mind answering mine?" She had dropped her guard excellent, five seconds left.

"Fair's Fair" John inclined.

"Will attack my crew and myself again when your armor comes back online? And before you ask, your armor has blue indicator lights on the limbs, They went offline when my drone attacked you. Plus, the suit you wear handled that shock better than most heavy vehicles I've seen, so it logically it's EMP hardened."

"That depends."

"On what?"

"If you return my helmet and weapons I won't kill you, but I want more answers." His armor came back online and he folded his hands in front of hisself patiently while Jane's weapon crunched together and she stowed it on her back.

"So do you have a name or do I just call you Bubbles?"

"Master Chief."

"That's no much of a first name, Chief."

"I didn't say that was my name now did I?"

"Touche"

"So will I get my gear back?"

"Yes,but you'll be kept in the cargo bay with sentries posted outside the door."

"Acknowledged." When Shepard beckoned Chief to follow her to the cargo hold he hesitated not wanting to look weak and dependent, but in the end John needed to gain her trust so that he could use her resources.

During the journey to the place John would be staying in He saw several new aliens, one that looked like a smaller more feline version of the Sanghelli and a purple suited being in a environment suit if he guessed correctly, and a large frog like lizard that was significantly larger than the other creatures so far, and a horned amphibious humanoid that moved constantly in fast movements, and another blue female woman. John's trained mind observed them and made hypothesis based off their appearances and behaviors evaluating their threat level. When he reached the conclusion that he would be hard pressed to take them on with his armor incomplete he pondered a more pressing matter his status.

He was obviously outside UNSC space, but there was human life here and their weapons and armor were foreign to him, yet their basic profiles were similar. With all the evidence accounted for John came to the the conjecture that he was possibly in URF territory where they had made friendly contact with other aliens races. If so then it was his goal to return to UNSC held space. He worried over the dream he had, It seemed like his own memory, but he had no recollection of his parents. Was John mentally unbalanced, it was possible with the recent psychological trauma that he could create false memories to avoid opening old wounds. His family though was so alive, yet they were bland as if they had no details. He made it a point to ask Melody to evaluate his mental conditions when he regained possession of her.

The commander opened a airlock door and stepped inside to give him the grand tour. The tour wasn't necessary, the cot was in the corner and the basin was obviously portable along with the desk. John stood waiting for his gear to be delivered. The bed wouldn't support his weight and the desk seemed to struggle to hold its own weight.

A few moments later John's helmet and weapons were delivered by the Sanghelli Cat he had seen earlier. The alien seemed openly hostile to John, possibly due to hospitalizing the blue woman. Practically dropping the helmet and weapons the being walked out.

John's hands clenched and unclenched as he debated wether it was profitable to kill the alien or not. John settled with the notion that eventually he would settle his score when no one was looking. He quickly put the helmet on after moving Melody's chip out and replacing it in the correct order. John welcomed the comforting ice cold sensation that gradually warmed as his heart pumped fresh blood into his head.

Melody appeared on the HUD her face was creased with worry that was replaced by relief, "Chief, You're alive."

"Melody, we've encountered a snag. We're in URF space and they have alien allies. We need to regroup with the UNSC..."

"John, we're not in URF space... We're no longer in our plane of existence. When the Forerunner sentinels incapacitated the science team the other AIs and I stayed online and observed. While you were under Genesis stowed you in Slip space suspension pods after placing everyone into an artificially induced coma. A week later the slip space event we had been occupying was released. The Forerunner quarantine protocol had been initiated and the occupants of all the pods were released. As we fell out of Slip space back into real space the pod malfunctioned and the portal was flawed dropping us back into a reality, but not our reality. John, in other words we're not in Kansas anymore."

"Did the others make it?" John said after processing the unwelcome news, flawed slip space operations were lethal most were never seen again.

"I don't know we'll need access to a longe range sensory system so I can search for them. I'll search for recent spikes in Chekorov radioactivity and slip space ruptures characteristics."

"Affirmative, I have another request. I need yo to analyze my neural activity and reach a diagnosis. I had a dream that turned into a memory, it was an impossible memory. I saw my family and the attack on my home world, but I don't remember them and I never fought on Eridanus II when it was invaded. I somehow created a false memory and my mental instability may jeopardize us while we're here. So I need you to..."

"John, I put that memory there. While you were comatose I heard unknowns talk about performing a mind meld on you to recover any information. It sounded like accessing your memories and the information you have in your head is classified above top secret. So I wrote a cerebral function that would activate if your neural activity was centered around memories and knowledge. Once the mind meld began to search through your memory it was feed a crafted memory that showed them a plausible life story that was able to explain the Covenant war and your military back round." Melody calmly explained her actions with a neutral face.

"Thanks, but never do that again." John said in a cold voice that concealed his anger at his memories being altered with.

"Understood."

"Now our main goal is to discover as much about this reality we're in and regroup with the rest of Blue team. After that we'll find a way back home. Now let's talk with this Commander Shepard."


End file.
